And thou, thou rich-haired youth of morn, In braided dance, their murmurs joined, High on some cliff, to heaven up-piled, Its glooms embrown, its springs unlock, An Eden, like his own, lies spread : By which, as Milton lay, his evening ear, From many a cloud that dropped ethereal dew, Nigh sphered in heaven, its native strains could hear; On which that ancient trump he reached was hung: Thither oft, his glory greeting, From Waller's myrtle shades retreating, With many a vow from Hope's aspiring tongue, Of all the sons of soul, was known; And Heaven, and Fancy, kindred powers, Have now o'erturned the inspiring bowers; Or curtained close such scene from every future view. ODE, WRITTEN IN THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR 1746. How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By fairy hands their knell is rung; ODE TO MERCY. STROPHE. O THOU, who sitt'st a smiling bride Winn'st from his fatal grasp the spear, And hidest in wreaths of flowers his bloodless sword! By godlike chiefs alone beheld, Oft with thy bosom bare art found, Pleading for him the youth who sinks to ground: Before thy shrine my country's genius stands, And decks thy altar still, though pierced with many a wound. ANTISTROPHE. When he whom even our joys provoke, The fiend of nature joined his yoke, And rushed in wrath to make our isle his prey; O'ertook him on his blasted road, And stopped his wheels, and looked his rage away. That bore him swift to savage deeds, Thy tender melting eyes they own; Where Justice bars her iron tower, To thee we build a roseate bower; Thou, thou shalt rule our queen, and share our monarch's throne ! ODE TO LIBERTY. STROPHE. WHO shall wake the Spartan fife, Shall sing the sword, in myrtles drest, At Wisdom's shrine a while its flame concealing, (What place so fit to seal a deed renowned ?) Till she her brightest lightnings round revealing, It leaped in glory forth, and dealt her prompted wound! O Goddess, in that feeling hour, When most its sounds would court thy ears, Let not my shell's misguided power No, Freedom, no, I will not tell When Time his northern sons of spoil awoke, And all the blended work of strength and grace, And many a barbarous yell, to thousand fragments broke. EPODE. Yet, even where'er the least appeared, Still, 'midst the scattered states around, Some remnants of her strength were found; They saw, by what escaped the storm, How in the great, the labored whole, In jealous Pisa's olive shade! See small Marino joins the theme, To sad Liguria's bleeding state. |